What Oolong Are You Drinking

Semi-oxidized tea
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debunix
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Sun Mar 21, 2021 5:54 pm

A long neglected samples of Zhi Lan Fenhaung Oolong Spring 2016 from Norbu....just opened this week. It's a fine tea, not the equal of the best from Imen, but as good as her 'second tier' teas...and as good or better than any I've had that was not from TeaHabitat:
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Infused in a Chao Zhou pot from TH and enjoyed in a Suzuki steel glaze guinomi.
faj
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Sun Mar 21, 2021 6:00 pm

LeoFox wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:31 pm
To understand a thing in itself with no reference to other things may be impossible for us as humans.
To understand anything may be impossible, but hopefully enjoying something does not require truly understanding it, or else it would mean nothing can be enjoyed, which would be rather sad, and would make me delusional. :)
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LeoFox
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Sun Mar 21, 2021 6:19 pm

belewfripp wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 5:38 pm
LeoFox wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:31 pm

To understand a thing in itself with no reference to other things may be impossible for us as humans.

Now we reach the territory of the structuralists
Indeed. But then, we have to ask ourselves, from whence came the things we first used as a reference? And what was our reference for understanding the reference? Genetics? Collective unconscious? Vendor marketing? :lol:

To be serious, though, I had a long-term relationship with a woman who is color-blind. She sees "red" as "grey". But - what's "grey"? Well, according to her, it was just the color she perceived when other people said, "that's grey" and then when people called something "red" it was the same thing. But how do we know what that actually looks like? How do I know when I see "red" you do, too? Kind of goes back to Ethan's comments on my tasting notes - he hasn't encountered cinnamon, but he thinks he knows what I might mean by that. And as faj noted, cinnamon doesn't "own" those aromatic notes (if it did, how could unadulterated tea ever smell like it anyway?).
Wittgenstein, philosophical investigations (1.293):
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belewfripp
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Sun Mar 21, 2021 7:49 pm

debunix wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 5:54 pm
Infused in a Chao Zhou pot from TH and enjoyed in a Suzuki steel glaze guinomi.
Beautiful!
LeoFox wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 6:19 pm
Wittgenstein, philosophical investigations (1.293):
Image
I have it on good authority from the great philosopher Monty Python that, and I quote, "Wittgenstein was a beery swine/who was just as schloshed as Schlegel". :lol:
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Bok
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Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:40 pm

faj wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:20 pm
I surely wish my tea journey brings me closer to enjoying fewer teas, but teas that are a good enough fit or me that I am able to enjoy them every day without becoming bored or irritated with their flaws.
That’s a very good mind set! I myself find it as well, if not irritating, then at least mildly pointless to look for peach, cinnamon or whatever alien reference in a tea. Tea tastes like tea. If not then there’s something wrong with it.
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Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:03 pm

faj wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:20 pm
.... It is not like cinnamon "owns" the aromatic notes it is associated with.

... To me, focusing on "notes" is kind of like focusing on how your date reminds you of previous partners. It may show your analytical prowess, but does not necessarily make for the best evening...
Good insights. I have made the mistake of thinking exactly of the reference, such as cinnamon instead of the aroma which can be smelled from other sources. Great analogy about focusing on flavor notes is like thinking of previous partners while on a date with a new prospect. The last time a woman flirted with me (another resident in the senior housing where I live) I told her that I did not understand how anyone here could be interested in me when they already had a place to stay. (I was remembering that many of my past relationships had practical considerations involved in their beginnings, such as getting out of the rain.)

Nice post. Thanks.
Last edited by Victoria on Mon Mar 22, 2021 2:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Andrew S
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:52 am

Bok wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:40 pm
I myself find it as well, if not irritating, then at least mildly pointless to look for peach, cinnamon or whatever alien reference in a tea.
I’m curious to see if there tends to be a natural progression for new tea drinkers to move away from enjoying flavours and aromas, and towards enjoying the more subtle aspects of tea, or if there are some people who always place importance on flavours and aromas.

One of the teas that started me on this adventure was high mountain Taiwanese wu long. The flavours and aromas were remarkably different to the generic black teas that I had encountered up until then, and that’s what I enjoyed most at first.

Now, I mainly drink teas for the relaxing and calming feelings that good teas can provide, and I place secondary importance on things such as richness, mouthfeel, aftertaste and refreshment. Flavours and aromas, while pleasant, aren’t important to me anymore.

I think that reading descriptions of flavours and aromas will be useful to people who enjoy those aspects of tea and to those who are starting out (just as they can be useful to some people for things such as whisky and wine, so long as they're not taken too seriously), but I now focus on things such as how a tea was grown, processed and stored, since those attributes are more relevant to what I enjoy in my teas.
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LeoFox
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:03 am

@Andrew S
Andrew S wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:52 am
Now, I mainly drink teas for the relaxing and calming feelings that good teas can provide, and I place secondary importance on things such as richness, mouthfeel, aftertaste and refreshment. Flavours and aromas, while pleasant, aren’t important to me anymore.

but I now focus on things such as how a tea was grown, processed and stored, since those attributes are more relevant to what I enjoy in my teas.
It is interesting to read about the value systems of different people. I imagine from a vendor point of view, this is critical for advertising the teas.

Based on what you say, I imagine vendor sites that focus on flavor and aroma profiles are targetting the tea beginners. In contrast, a vendor description for a tea that reads "this tea will give a nice calming feeling. It is from ancient trees processed traditionally and so the qi is strong" will be so alien and possibly off putting to some people. Certainly this woo tends to put me off and I try to unsee these things. But maybe people who focus on this buy more tea so it is a better strategy to capture that market instead of beginners who might might just sample and not come back.

To me these flavor profiles are actually very useful to help people place the tea within their sensory experience. Additionally from a cupping point of view, fragrance, aroma and body are key quality attributes. The comparisons to fruits and flowers can be based on some reality since they share terpenes and aromatics from a chemical stand point. Of course it can get out of hand (ie mei leaf).

The interplay of these sensual qualities and the contemplation and analysis of these qualities is key to my personal enjoyment of tea and most other experiences in life. "Feelings" from a tea are usually secondary for me. If I were to focus on good feelings, I would only drink sencha, likely due to the high theanine content.
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belewfripp
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:43 am

Andrew S wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:52 am

I’m curious to see if there tends to be a natural progression for new tea drinkers to move away from enjoying flavours and aromas, and towards enjoying the more subtle aspects of tea, or if there are some people who always place importance on flavours and aromas.
Though newer myself, I think you are correct in some degree that there is a progression, since in general it is true that people tend to be most aware of that which is most "upfront" (and because experience with other hobbies has taught me this is probably true to some degree). However, not all flavors and aromas are straightforward, just as you can have subtle and nuanced music instead of a guitar to the forehead. As such, there are also those who don't move away from flavor/aroma and stick with those permanently. I also think we are all looking for a way to communicate our experience to others - some use metaphor, some use photographs, some refer not to objects but to shared experience of other teas, etc.

I'm also not sure why it has to be an either/or proposition - if people naturally come to value other things more as time goes by, that's as valid as anything else, but I think it's a false dichotomy to say that we have to either value flavor/aroma or throat/body feels or mental clarity/relaxation. Some days, I don't care if it tastes like nothing, I want the other qualities - but some days I want a flavor that is bright and shining in my mouth.

Incidentally, although I get that you aren't trying to say one way is better or worse, "noob to expert" is a progression that inherently lends itself to appropriation for quality judgments (and sometimes those judgments are valid, but not unilaterally). Cwyn's blog had a recent post that already kind of had me thinking along these lines - I understand where she's coming from, but don't really agree with her end conclusions. Not everyone wants "the best" - they want what they like, and while education is great (such that what people like can grow and change), pushing people towards what is "better" even if they aren't going to enjoy it is bound to result in frustration and worse.
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Bok
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:53 am

@Andrew S I think it’s a type, rather than a progressive thing, what different people like and focus on in a tea.

I’ve had a lot of tea, I believe and I couldn’t care less about relaxing or exciting qualities of it. I’m pretty relaxed and calm per se, so the tea makes no difference to me. I don’t care about fragrances that much, but do focus a lot on the body. But that’s just me.

Flavour and aroma can be more easily noticed and appreciated by the lay person, but then, there is also a lot of depth to these even among something “superficial” as fragrances. Baozhong is a good example of a sophisticated tea where people focus almost exclusively on these higher notes. Oriental beauty as well to some extent.

For a Yancha that would possibly not be the right approach, the upfront ones are usually the crowd pleasers and not the premium teas.

For Puerh, body feel seems to much more important as for the rest of sensations it’s not such a *cough* terribly interesting tea compared to other kinds in that sense...

It all depends, as it always does.
Andrew S
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:56 pm

It’s fun to see how different people have different ways of thinking about something as ostensibly simple as tea.

I hope that my remarks didn’t come across pretentiously by suggesting a dichotomy, a hierarchy of valid experiences, or a noob versus expert thought process. The problem of living somewhere lacking in tea culture is that I often have only my own experiences to guide me, and the problem with the internet is that some subtlety is lost along the way.

I try to avoid talking about the ‘qi’ of a tea, since experience shows me that the same tea can affect different people in different ways, just like flavours can be perceived differently. A vendor’s description that a ‘qi is strong’ might be no better than saying that a wine is ‘elegant’ or that it conveys some kind of emotion (and it might come across as being pretentious nonsense, or a thinly-veiled attempt to market the tea to people like me, at least until you can trust that such descriptions by a particular vendor are genuinely held by them). Different people will have different experiences of the same tea.

Further, ‘qi’ tends to connote some spiritualism, which is not how I approach the concept. I assume that it’s all l-theanine in concert with caffeine and various other fun little chemicals, but I also think that there’s some pleasure to be had in the mystery of it all (just like reading about astronomy is different to looking up at our galaxy on a clear night).

It’s also interesting to see a comparison with pu er get mentioned. For my part, I have absolutely no idea how to describe what an old pu er tastes like, but the experience of drinking it can make me happy regardless of that. I like old and humidly-stored pu er because it feels comfortable, warming and calming, as opposed to how I get harsh, cold and jittery feelings from young and dryly-stored pu er, but other people will probably translate those same experiences into different concepts.

Similarly, if I drink a high mountain tea these days, I’m more likely to think about its freshness and purity of flavour than how specific flavours might be described in terms of fruits and flowers. I’m sure that I’ve had teas that had the same kind of flavour, but where one felt heavier or more difficult, while the other felt lighter and brighter, and that’s the kind of thing that I enjoy more these days.

Now, to return to the topic, and, speaking of flavours, aromas and vague concepts of qi… I’ve just unearthed a small, neglected stash of teas from my former flavour- and aroma-loving days.

Who thinks they’ve become ‘aged’, and who thinks they’ve just become ‘old’, ‘stale’, or frozen in time by their packaging? Updates to follow…
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Victoria
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:16 pm

Interesting exchange, guaranteed among tea drinkers there will be different sensibilities, objectives, inclinations, likes, dislikes... The ineffable and the effable in tea. Attempting to describe tea is to communicate experience through words. Not always perfect, but can be very useful. For instance, if someone describes a tea as smoky, plummy, dusty, putrid I will be less inclined to try it given my preferences. Of course, personal experience can be so subjective that what is bitter to one is sweet to another, so that needs to be taken into account, but I don’t think it cancels out the benefit of an attempt of description when possible. Like everything related to tea there is an art in describing it as well.

I can imagine some benefit in narrowing down a focus during a session to just a few senses like texture, mouth feel, hui gan. And I agree some teas exhibit their strength in body over aroma, mouth feel over taste, or body feel over both aroma and taste.

Yet, what keeps me coming back to yet another tea session is a symphony of the senses, sometimes dissonant, sometimes harmonic, always fluid and changing. Heightened sensory olfactory, gustatory, tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive, auditory awareness keeps me engaged and wanting more. Aroma coming off warm leaf sets the tone for a session, as does aromatic steam rising as I pour the first few steeps. Empty cup aroma can be so intoxicating, without even sipping on a tea. Aroma also effects our perception of taste, of texture, and body. The experience of flavor is a mingling of visual, aromatic, textural, thermal and other sensations. All these sensations work together so perfectly when a tea is superior, I see no need to eliminate some over others.
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Victoria
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:22 pm

Andrew S wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:56 pm
Now, to return to the topic, and, speaking of flavours, aromas and vague concepts of qi… I’ve just unearthed a small, neglected stash of teas from my former flavour- and aroma-loving days.

Who thinks they’ve become ‘aged’, and who thinks they’ve just become ‘old’, ‘stale’, or frozen in time by their packaging? Updates to follow…
I recently opened a vacu-sealed Lishan from 2017, it was still very fresh, and it wasn’t refrigerated. Proper vacu-sealed foil packs can extend freshness for a long time, although in your case it’s been a decade so will be interesting to see if it has ‘aged’ or is still fresh with some mellowing.
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Tillerman
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:58 pm

faj wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:20 pm

I have written before that although I understand noticing aromatic similarities may be fun (or unavoidable), I think being able to truly enjoy a tea does not require referencing other sensory experiences, just as enjoying an apple pie does not require being reminded of an oolong tea. .
Here, here. Personally (and probably because I am not particularly good at it) I eschew descriptors that reference other foods. A far saner approach, to my mind, is to taste tea (and wine and apples) structurally. I wrote an article about this on the Ultracrepidarian's Notebook: https://tillermantea.net/2020/06/structural/
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Bok
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Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:07 pm

Victoria wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:16 pm
Empty cup aroma can be so intoxicating, without even sipping on tea. Aroma also effects our perception of taste, of texture, and body. The experience of flavor is a mingling of visual, aromatic, textural, thermal and other sensations. All these sensations work together so perfectly when a tea is superior, I see no need to eliminate some over others.
Good that you mention the cup smell! That is indeed a pleasure in itself! One reason I prefer porcelain cups is that most other cups do not provide that much feedback in terms of smell.
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